Saturday, October 24, 2009

Israel is cornered here. For that matter so is the United States. When this Iran deal goes through on Friday, the primary excuse for war with Iran evaporates.

Where does that leave Israel and the United States?

Israel now faces war crimes charges at the Hague. Yes, the United States will veto the Goldstone Report in the Security Council, but the ringer in the deal is that the General assembly, under Resolution 377, can bypass the Security Council and send the Goldstone Report to the Hague and the United States and Israel cannot stop it. Earlier this year, the General Assembly voted through a resolution requesting Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and submit to the exact same IAEA inspections that Iran (and every other NNPT signatory) submits to. Israel refused. The fact that Israel and the United States were not able to deflect this Resolution tell us that the General Assembly has lost all patience with Israel. The credibility of the UN as a world governing body is on the line. The probability that the General Assembly will bypass the Security Council is therefore very high. A war with Iran would have distracted the media from Israel's war crimes charges. That seems not likely to happen now.

As for the United States, the US Government was hoping to ignite a new major war, one which would distract Americans from the already failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the economy destroyed by failed US Government policy. And based on prior history, the US Government probably anticipates that a new major war would persuade Americans to forget their anger over the aforesaid failed government policy, and imbued with a renewed patriotic fervor would suddenly return to being obedient breeders of soldiers and payers of war-taxes. As naive as that expectation might have been, the Iran enrichment deal ends the possibility of a new war with which to distract from the old war.

So both the United States and Israel are in serious trouble. They had wanted war with Iran to distract the world from their various domestic problems, and now that is not likely to happen. Israel has to live with their war crimes charges. The US has to live with their ruined economy and failed wars, and public anger. Both Israel and the US are showing themselves as desperate to block Israel war crimes charged from progressing, and may have wasted that political capital in vain if the UN General; Assembly invokes Resolution 377.

So, in short, Israel and the US are cornered politically. Cornered animals are the most dangerous and desperate. Our future is in the hands of whichever leader is the least mentally stable, and ready to hit the panic button. That panic move; that striking out from the corner could be something subtle like a new false-flag "terror" attack, or something as straightforward as simply attacking Iran without provocation.

But Israel and the US are cornered right now. and we should be prepared to see them act like it.